An Easy Eating Plan



Today I thought a lot about eating plans. There are a million out there and then there are just as many plans on how to shop with coupons, how to not shop with coupons. How to stock your pantry. How to shop in bulk or how to shop every couple days. There are folks that try them all, just hoping to find a way that works for them. Today I realized that for us, the eating plan is so simple, you eat what is ready to be eaten from the garden. I suspect that this is how people ate for thousands of years. Tonight we had corn on the cob, green beans, potato salad, fresh tomatoes, deviled eggs, baked beans and home made bread, still warm from the oven. It wasn't a complicated meal plan, it was what I gathered today from our own land, except for the baked beans and the flour, sugar and yeast for the bread. What I picked, we ate. Of course in winter we might be eating a little less if we depended on the garden alone. But, in truth, here in North Texas we can grow almost all year long. We plant twice each year. There are not many winters when we don't have collard greens and cabbage growing.
I do admit, it's hard work. Tonight I am bone weary. Garden work, animal chores, cooking, caring for Mei-Ling and Melanie all day. I spent hours in the kitchen...so many green beans to prepare so they won't go to waste. Baking to be done along with all the pots and pans used in preparation. There were loads of laundry to be washed and hung out, then folded and put away. Floors to be cleaned and honestly I think if you added up my time sitting down, it would not have come to an hour. I am in no way complaining, quite the opposite actually. I feel so thankful for a life that follows the cycle of nature so closely. That for much of the year meals are planned according to what was just picked in the garden. Not by what the sales are or according to the latest diet. I am thankful that my arms are strong to do the work needing to be done. That I can pray for my children while my hands knead the bread dough, rather than let a machine do it for me, robbing me of that time when the thump thump of the dough being turned over and over, gives time to stand and pray. I am thankful that sleep comes to me so easily at night, soundly sleeping until morning comes.

I am well aware that this is not the life for everyone, but it is for me.
Women so long ago, would have laughed at our numerous eating plans and shopping lists, for life in the olden days was far less complicated. You made due with what you had, when you had it.
Bread just out of the oven
tomatoes in a bowl ready to be eaten
Some of the green beans steaming for the evening meal.

Comments

Janette said…
I wish I were not as lazy as I am. I do not have the will to tend a garden well (nor the knowledge). Instead I tend my garden of children- they too wear me out:>)
My prayers continue for your family- especially Melanie. The pain is so great from what I understand from my neice- who lost her first at 20 weeks. I can never understand- but I do feel a great need to pray for your daughter's and my niece's healing.
Momzoo said…
That sounds wonderful. I wish we could grow year 'round! Fresh corn in June, you lucky gal, 'round here we just planted our corn a couple of weeks ago. We can't plant tender veggies until mid-May, sometimes we will even get a hard frost into June!

I can do a spring garden with the more hardy plants, but this year we had an infestation of cut worms that ate all but two cabbages!
han_ysic said…
I agree with your eating plan. Lots of veges, lots of fresh things. I miss my greens that I had when I last had a big garden so am steadily building them up for lots of salads and quiches to get iron without too much meat. I also find I can really look at what I want to eat (what my body wants to eat rather than my emotions) sometimes I will decide on the most unusual things but usually they are healthy rather than junky and fatty. Like homemade pizza with loads of veges. Hmmm, might make one for dinner.
novascotiagal said…
I would love to have a vegetable garden, and I'm willing to work at it, but when we built this house, I discovered that deer will eat everything, and return several times in the day and night. I would be "bone weary" only to be providing salad for the wildlife. I know there are ways to protect the garden, but the fence I need would be a big project, and costly, so knowing that we might be moving in a year and a half... I'll just have to wait until then to plan a protected garden. In the meantime, I love your photos. They make me hungry, and determined to find a way in two years' time.
Patty said…
Novascotiagal,
When we lived in Oregon, the deer seemed to outnumber the people in our area. We lived way out in the country, in the mountains. We had a 6 ft fence around our garden with an added two feet of barbed wire. Our garden fence was 8 feet high ! Looked a bit like some fence around a prison, but it did the job.
Dana and Daisy said…
Your dinner sounds more delicious than any gourmet restaurant could offer. I am hungry for some juicy home grown tomatoes. I remember summer mornings helping my aunt pick tomatoes in the garden. We would pop the little cherry ones right into our mouth off the vine! Mmm! Then we would spend the hot afternoons on the shady porch and snap beans. We had so many ripe watermelons we would slice them open, eat just the heart and toss the rest back to the garden to compost.
Unknown said…
Wow! I wish I could have some of that food. It looks so yummy.
Anabella
Anonymous said…
I always enjoy your posts about your home grown and cooked veggies and meals. I feel like I've been given a hug. The green colours are so vibrant.

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